1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a trajectory processing apparatus and method that process a trajectory indicative of a route of a movable body, e.g., a person who moves in a monitored region.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been conventionally known a trajectory processing apparatus disclosed in JP-A 2006-350751 (KOKAI). This apparatus has a picture database, a sales information database, a trajectory conversion processing section, and a trajectory database. In the picture database, pictures taken by a plurality of cameras installed in a store are recorded in association with time information. In the sales information database, sales information input from a sales information input device is stored in association with a purchase time. The trajectory conversion processing section fetches a picture recorded in the picture database and executes image processing to this picture to create trajectory data. In the trajectory database, the trajectory data created by the trajectory conversion processing section is recorded.
A person in charge of trajectory analysis specifies sales information from the sales information database. Then, trajectory data in the trajectory database is specified from a purchase time in this sales information. Further, a display shows a trajectory based on this trajectory data. Then, the person in charge of trajectory analysis can analyze the trajectory of a customer.
JP-A 2006-350751 (KOKAI) has a description that an image processing technology for pictures taken by cameras is used to extract a customer, trace the extracted customer, and obtain trajectory data. However, according to the current image processing technology, even if an entire area in a store is shot without blind spots, tracing movement of one customer in the entire region in the store as one trajectory is very difficult. For example, a trajectory is disconnected, or it is counterchanged with a trajectory of another customer. As factors of such an inconvenience, mixture of routes of a customer, a change in person characteristic amounts caused due to a difference between angles for watching the same customer, movement of a customer himself/herself, e.g., raising hands or bending over, and others can be considered. Any countermeasure for the problem that such an inconvenience frequently occurs has not been proposed at all.